Time has come to cut ties with cold stepmother

Friday

Jul 12, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 12, 2013 at 10:08 AM

Dear Carolyn: My father married a woman 20 years younger than he. Since he passed away two years ago at 84, his widow hasn't invited us over to the house I grew up in, and she has had extensive work done on the house. When my nephew visited, she dropped off cookies and a gift for his kids but left because she didn't want to drive in the rain. She accepts dinner invitations, always comes on Thanksgiving and occasionally pays.

Dear Carolyn: My father married a woman 20 years younger than he. Since he passed away two years ago at 84, his widow hasn’t invited us over to the house I grew up in, and she has had extensive work done on the house. When my nephew visited, she dropped off cookies and a gift for his kids but left because she didn’t want to drive in the rain. She accepts dinner invitations, always comes on Thanksgiving and occasionally pays.

I always thought she married my dad for his money, and she insisted that he leave her everything; my dad told me that. My dad left my brother and me a small insurance policy.

She showed no affection toward my dad when he was dying of lung cancer, and she gave him so much morphine that he lost consciousness. She told me point-blank that there wouldn’t be any treatment and joked after he died about “getting the evidence out the door.” She recently declined an invitation to dinner because her cat has asthma.

I wonder whether I am just biased against her. How does one handle such a person?

— Anonymous

Dear Anonymous: I might just use “The cat has asthma” when I need an excuse, and I don’t have a cat.

The only answer is a general and rather sad one: There’s really nothing to “handle”; she apparently doesn’t see herself as part of your family beyond a rather superficial sense of duty. Because you plainly dislike her, I’d say you’re overdue to release her from the last few family obligations.

Still, two specifics seem worth bringing up:

• “So much morphine”: She couldn’t have given him more than he was prescribed. It’s possible that his pain was finally well enough managed for him to sleep, that he asked her to max out the morphine, that he refused further treatment. It might help you to talk to a hospice social worker.

• “Extensive work on the house”: Although it’s unfortunate that your childhood home is being transformed, any new owners would probably have done the same. Grief and anger have a way of inflaming what would otherwise be routine.

I see why you’re concerned about bias, but I think it’s moot. If you think it honors your father to keep her in the loop for dinners and Thanksgiving, then do. If that hurts more than it helps, then don’t.

And, if neither feels right, then I suggest calling the hospice again, this time to find help for what have turned out to be obstacles to simple grief. I’m sorry.